There is no concern for public interests or for the rights of the people; it is clear that the rulers form a band, that France is their prey, and that they intend to hold on to it for and against everybody, by every possible means, including bayonets.

Under this civil regime, a clean sweep of the broom at the center makes it necessary to be on the side of numbers .-- In the armies, especially in the army of Italy, republican faith and patriotic abnegation, since the territory became free, have given way to natural appetites and military passions.[1232] Barefoot, in rags, with four ounces of bread a day, paid in assignats which are not accepted in the markets, both officers and men desire above all things to be relieved of their misery; "the poor fellows, after three years of longing on the summits of the Alps, reach the promised land, and want to enjoy it."[1233] Another spur consists in the pride which is stimulated by the imagination and by success; add to this the necessity for finding an outlet for their energy, the steam and high pressure of youth; nearly all are very young men, who regard life, in Gallic or French fashion, as a party of pleasure and as a duel.

But to feel brave and to prove that one is so, to face bullets for amusement and defiantly, to abandon a successful adventure for a battle and a battle for a ball, to enjoy ones-self and take risks to excess, without dissimulating, and with no other object than the sensation of the moment,[1234] to revel in excitement through emulation and danger, is no longer self-devotion, but giving one's-self up to one's fancies; and, for all who are not harebrained, to give one's-self up to one's fancies means to make one's way, obtain promotion, pillage so as to become rich, like Massena, and conquer so as to become powerful, like Bonaparte .-- All this is understood between the general and his army from the very first,[1235] and, after one year's experience, the understanding is perfect.

One moral is derived from their common acts, vague in the army, precise in the general; what the army only half sees, he sees clearly; if he urges his comrades on, it is because they follow their own inclination.

He simply has a start on them, and is quicker to make up his mind that the world is a grand banquet, free to the first-comer, but at which, to be well served, one must have long arms, be the first to get helped, and let the rest take what is left.
So natural does this seem to him, he says so openly and to men who are not his intimates; to Miot, a diplomat, and to Melzi a foreigner: "Do you suppose, says he to them,[1236] after the preliminaries of Leoben, "that to make great men out of Directory lawyers, the Carnots' and the Barras, I triumph in Italy?
Do you suppose also that it is for the establishment of a republic?
What an idea! A republic of thirty million men! With our customs, our vices, how is that possible?
It is a delusion which the French are infatuated with and which will vanish along with so many others.